Your Tuesday College Football Reader

Tumble weeds are a’ blowing through college football this week, now that nearly two weeks has elapsed since the final game and all the accolades have been given out. I’m thinking that maybe next year the GMAC bowl may try to move their game to this week in order to garner even more attention to their running way too late in the year for a bowl this insignificant format. You guys check in with us from time to time so we don’t think that tumbleweeds are blowing through TET.

Utah coach Kyle Whittingham was selected as the Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant College Coach of the year award, guiding the Utes to an undefeated season and a Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama. Quite ironically, it’s a good thing the award is given outafter the regular season, instead of before, lest many might have rightly voted for Nick Saban–the very coach that Whittingham beat in the bowl. Naturally, that would have been in a long standing tradition of championships and awards Alabama won before losing in the bowl game…

This little nugget from last week, too juicy to ignore: Accused by a high school coach of dispicable recruiting practices, South Carolina and the Old Ball Coach himselfhave been banned from Tucker high, in metro Atlanta, from recruiting any more players. The controversy revolves around the recruitment of Jonathon Davis, a 5’7″,205 lb linebacker who was initially offered a schollie by Gamecock assistants Shane Beamer and Ron Cooper. When Cooper has hired away from USC by LSU on January 6th, interest seemed to wane on Davis. His offer was withdrawn by SC soon after, leaving Davis high and dry.

Tucker HC Franklin Stephens had heated phone calls with both Beamer and Spurrier. He said that Spurrier “accepted blame” for the incident, but refused to do anything about it, hence the proclamation that the Gamecocks were “no longer welcome” to recruit Tucker players. Believe it or not, this type of thing seemingly goes on all the time.

So that got me thinking: where else might be some good places to ban Steve Spurrier, past, present and future? A list, from the home office in Atlanta, GA

10) Ron Zook’s retirement party…

9) The coloring book section at the Auburn library…

8) Redskins’ training camp…

7) Bobby Bowden’s funeral…

6) From any more additions to the trophy case at Florida Field…

5) Former Florida QB and Heisman candidate Terry Dean’s home…

4) The Back 9 at Augusta…

3) Athens, Georgia, period (unless he promises not to hang half a hunnert again…)

2) Any celebrity golf tournament when Tommy Tuberville is in his foursome…

1) Participating on the sidelines of the SEC championship game ever again…

And lastly, an interesting poll over at sister SB blog Dawg Sports sought to elect a biggest rival for the Dogs. We at Auburn suffer from no misgivings about who our biggest rival is, nor our second biggest. But our third biggest is somewhat ambiguous, especially when you factor in some of our biggest rivalries that the SEC took away on an annual basis, as I do in this weeks poll. I love these polls. They’re sooo much more interesting than my Magic 8 ball. “Will Nick Saban leave Alabama for another job anytime soon?” Answer unclear: ask again later…

And Richard Pittman of And the Valley Shook, I’d really like to see a poll ranking the top 3 rivalries for the purple Tigers. THAT would be really revealing